A Vietnamese woman has been sentenced to 16 years in an Indonesian prison for illegally possessing one kilogram of heroin.

Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted the Indonesian media as saying that a court in Medan in North Sumatra Province also fined Nguyen Thi Tuyet Trinh nearly US$112,000, with a failure to pay resulting in an additional five months in prison.

Trinh was arrested with the drugs at Polonia airport in Medan last June after flying in from Kuala Lumpur.

She said that an African named Uche had hired her in Thailand to carry the drugs to Medan.